How to Design with Colorful Herbs

Plant herbs for their great looks and for making your food better tasting and healthier. Herbs are easy to grow. Their purple, gold, silver, or green foliage will make your container gardens and home landscaping more rewarding.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• herb plants
• well drained garden or potting soil
• sunny garden spots or a place to set containers outdoors
• containers for outdoor growing
• sand or perlite if your garden soil has a lot of clay.
• compost if your garden soil lacks organic matter

1. Most herbs need a sunny exposure. Find your sunniest outdoor spots and think about enhancing them with colorful herbs. A sunny windowsill indoors is fine but not as good as an outdoor garden
2. Decide whether you will grow the herbs in the ground or in containers. Herbs need good drainage but the soil does not have to be too rich. Large pots (12 or more inches wide) do not have to be watered as frequently as tiny pots.
3. Start small. You can grow many diverse herbs together in a apace 2 by 2 feet. Or you can plant them in a large, wide flowerpot 12 or more inches wide and 12 inches deep. You can also add colorful, fragrant herbs to any other part of the garden with enough sun, just as if you were adding more annuals or perennials, blending or contrasting the colors and textures.
4. Most garden centers sell herbs in four-inch plastic pots. Buy five for a 12-inch flowerpot. It is a good idea to repeat some color accents. If you have golden thyme in your selections, combine it with another gold-splashed herb such as a variegated sage. Contrast these with green leaved herbs like basil and parsley and maybe some chamomile with yellow and white flowers. Or go with purple-leaved basil and sage, combined with chives and delicate violas plus some lavender for silver foliage. The choice is yours but stay within a color theme.
5. If planting in the ground, work the soil. If it is too dense with clay, add compost and sand or perlite. If it is too sandy, add compost. If it is too heavy and rich, add sand or perlite. Herbs like a light, free-draining soil. Plan your design. One by one, remove each herb clump from its pot and set it into its planting hole at the same space at which it grew. Press the soil around them for good contact. Water all the plants daily for a few days until they take hold, then water as needed.
6. If planting in a pot, it is best to use all-purpose potting soil (not topsoil) combined with extra sand or perlite for drainage, three parts potting soil to one part perlite. I like to cover the drainage hole with a stone to keep soil from spilling out but allowing water to drain through. Put in a layer (2 or 3 inches) of your planting mix. Then one by one remove your plants from their pots and arrange them on top of the soil in a nice looking design. If the tops are just a bit lower than the pot lip, that is perfect. When the arrangement suits you, Use your potting mix to fill in the cracks between the plants. Water. Press more potting soil around and over the plants and make sure there is good plant-to-soil contact. Water again. Set the pot in a sheltered shady spot for a day or two to adjuct before placing it in its sunny one. Or do your project on a mild, cloudy day.
7. You can combine herbs into existing gardens as well. See what types you like and be sure to include those you prefer to cook with. Keep new plantings well watered for the first two days. Do not fertilize or else fertilize at half the recommended dose for flowers. Your herbs will soon adjust and thrive.
8. Pinch off bits for cooking if you like. Do not harvest heavily, especially at first. Pick more when growth gets going. Enjoy your colorful harvest.

Tips & Warnings

• Color and texture are important.
• You can grow herbs from seed. Easy ones are nasturtium, basil, coriander, chervil, and parsley.
• Remove any dying or yellow leaves to keep your plantings fresh looking.
• Trim back leggy plants and use the trimmings.
• Do not let your plantings stay waterlogged. Empty the pot saucers after a rain.